


howlin' for you

by hipgrab (merrymegtargaryen)



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alpha Kylo Ren, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alpha/Omega, F/M, Omega Rey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-12
Updated: 2019-01-12
Packaged: 2019-10-08 13:48:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17387489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/merrymegtargaryen/pseuds/hipgrab
Summary: Going to a heat house wasn’t Rey’s Plan A. It wasn’t her Plan B or C. It wasn’t even a Plan D. She doesn’t have an exact count, but if she had to guess, she’d put a heat house in Plan...J or K or L.





	howlin' for you

**Author's Note:**

> This was my entry for the First Annual Reylo Charity Anthology! It's an a/b/o fic, because I am nothing if not predictable, and the title is based on my favorite song from the Black Keys album, to which, TMI, I lost my virginity, so do with that what you will. 
> 
> Many thanks to jeeno, as always, for being a wonderful beta <3
> 
> Enjoy!

Going to a heat house wasn’t Rey’s Plan A. It wasn’t her Plan B or C. It wasn’t even a Plan D. She doesn’t have an exact count, but if she had to guess, she’d put a heat house in Plan...J or K or L. 

Not that she has anything against them, it’s just not her ideal way to pass a heat. The whole fucking-a-stranger-for-several-days thing has always sort of terrified her, both because of her personal safety and also because she has major trust issues. What if you get stuck with a bad alpha? What if they’re an asshole? What if they’re just boring and you have nothing to talk about while you’re locked onto their knot? 

But Rey’s gotten to the point where being locked onto someone who’s boring or rude is appealing because at least it means she has a knot to be locked onto at all, and not a plastic knotting toy that barely scratches the itch. She’s lost count of how many heats she’s gone through alone—in fact, she’s pretty sure she’d have an easier time counting how many heats she’s gone through with someone. It had been easier in college, when everyone was horny all the time and she’d always had a few obliging alpha friends. Now, though…

She sighs, squaring her shoulders as she heads into the scenting room. Really, it’s more of a bar and lounge, which Rey knows is to give it a casual air. She’s heard that alphas sometimes spend time in heat house bars as they would at any other bar, just to hang out and maybe make a long weekend of it if they get lucky. Most of them, though, come here to unwind. Rutting with omegas who are in heat reduces the likelihood of spontaneous ruts, and many alphas take off a few days every now and then to come to a heat house and induce rut. Rey hopes she finds one of those alphas. 

She doesn’t miss the way the alphas at the bar prick up and turn to look at her. There’s a cluster of omegas in the middle of the room, sitting on chairs and couches and glancing at the alphas, and dotted along the walls are couples trying to feel each other out. Rey doesn’t want to go to the bar, nor does she want to join the omegas. Slowly, carefully, she walks towards one of the little tables along the wall. She feels eyes on her as she takes a seat and wishes that she could have her phone with her, at least until she finds an alpha. It’s one of the heat house’s policies, and one that she gave her signed consent to uphold. Visitors to the heat house aren’t allowed to maintain contact after they check out—a safety precaution for those who may have attracted an overzealous partner. It’s also a way to make sure no illicit activity happens in the room—no pictures or videos taken of an omega too deeply in heat to give consent, no social media posts. It’s one of the reasons Rey chose this place. 

“This seat taken?”

She looks up to see a redheaded alpha looking down at her politely. She smiles, relieved she didn’t have long to wait. “Nope. All yours.” 

The alpha’s eyes sparkle as he takes the seat across from her. She isn’t good at flirting, but she knows that alphas love hearing things like _all yours_. 

“Do you come here often?” he asks, and she can’t tell if he’s joking or not.

“First time,” she says. “At any heat house, actually.”

He gives her a wolfish look. That’s another thing alphas love—first times. “ _ Really _ ?” 

“Yeah.”

He opens his mouth and says something, but Rey...doesn’t hear it. A strong, alpha smell fills her nostrils, whiting out her other senses. She turns towards the source of the distraction, completely ignoring the alpha in front of her. The scent is coming from another alpha, one who’s staring straight at her. 

He’s...beautiful. All dark hair and dark eyes. And he’s so tall. Even from where she’s sitting, she knows he’ll dwarf her.

_ He’d be a good mate _ , the omega part of her brain whispers. 

Some deep-rooted instinct makes her stand up and walk towards the alpha. The redhead catches her wrist, jolting her out of her stupor. 

“What are you doing?” he demands. 

She looks between him and the other alpha, unable to form words. What  _ is _ she doing? 

The other alpha, the dark-haired one, steps forward. He holds out his hand wordlessly, and for some reason, Rey reaches for him. His hand envelopes hers easily, big and warm and  _ alpha alpha alpha _

The first alpha stands up, still holding her wrist. “She’s with me,” he says with narrowed eyes.

Before Rey can say,  _ The hell I am _ , the other alpha says in a low, smooth voice, “I think she can decide for herself.” 

Rey looks between the two alphas holding her hands and thinks,  _ I’m going to die right here _ . Before suppressants, alphas used to fight for the right to mate an omega going into heat. They don’t do that anymore, but some deeply primitive part of Rey, the same part that has her so drawn to the dark-haired alpha, wants these two to fight. More importantly, she wants the dark-haired one to win, to claim her as his. 

_ Calm the fuck down _ , she tells the omega part of her brain. 

The redhead looks at her expectantly. He’s so ugly now. Not unattractive, though Rey has to admit that any attraction she’d had for him in the handful of seconds she’s known him has vanished. No, his ugliness is in his snarl, in the possessive way he’s still holding onto her wrist, the expectancy with which he looks at her, the  _ you belong to me _ pheromones he’s sending her way. She takes a step away from him, pulling her wrist out of his grasp. 

His face contorts with anger, and for a moment, Rey thinks he’s going to lash out. The people around them do, too, because it goes suddenly quiet and she can smell raised hackles. 

The redhead can, too, because he glances around and, after a moment, gives a brusque nod. “Fine.” He straightens his jacket, storming back to the bar. Rey hardly notices because she’s looking up at the dark-haired alpha (which is a feat, really, because she’s tall for a female omega as it is, which has been a turn-off for some alphas, but this alpha...he  _ towers _ over her). His eyes...god, his  _ eyes _ . She could lose herself in those eyes. She  _ is _ losing herself in those eyes. And his scent…

“What’s your name?” he asks her. His voice. She loves that voice. 

“Rey,” she says dreamily. “What’s yours?”

He hesitates. “Kylo.”

Kylo. A good name. A  _ strong _ name. One she hopes she gets to shout out later. Because...yeah, she’s a hopeless mess. She’s never had such a strong reaction to an alpha before, but she isn’t in the right frame of mind to unpack it. She wants him to throw her over his shoulder and take her up to a room and fuck her for three days straight. She wants him to make up for all those heats she’d had by herself, those five or six days where everything is too much and not enough and she’s seriously thought about buying horse tranquilizers just so she can stop being aware of her own body for a few hours.

He’s still holding her hand, something she realizes when he squeezes it. “Rey,” he says softly. “You smell...really close.”

She is. Oh, she is. She had a few hours when she walked in this room, but breathing in his scent seems to have shaved off some of those hours. 

But this is  _ ridiculous _ . She doesn’t know anything about him. Just his name. 

“Shouldn’t we,” she begins, licking her lips. “Try to...get to know each other first?”

“Of course,” he says in that same soft voice. God, she wonders if he’ll talk dirty to her. What horrible, filthy things will he say? 

She licks her lips again. “What...what’s your favorite color?”

He thinks for a moment, licking his own lips. Her eyes zero in on them and she feels herself getting wet. His lips are...ungodly. Big and soft and they’d look so good wrapped around her clit. “Red,” he says at last. “What’s yours?”

Slick pools in her cunt. She’s had enough. This is what a heat house is for, isn’t it? Hooking up with strangers. And this is one stranger she’d very much like to hook up with. “Blue. Let’s go.” She turns to the exit, pulling him along behind her. He huffs in amusement, letting her pull him to the elevators. As soon as the doors close behind them, he lowers his head to kiss her. She finds her back pressed to the wall, dizzy as his lips touch hers. They’re just as big and soft as they look, and they feel  _ amazing _ . His tongue prods at the seam of her mouth and she opens it eagerly, sliding her tongue along his. Her hands fist in his shirt, holding him close. When she nips at his lower lip, he growls. 

“Kitten likes to play rough, hmm?” 

She nips him again in response. He wraps a hand in her hair, tugging her head back so that he can look at her with eyes dark with lust. “I’ll give it to you rough.”

And god, that isn’t  _ fair _ , the way he says that right here, so far from her room. She whimpers a little; he kisses her again, one hand brushing her center. She whimpers again, canting against his hand.

The doors open before they can do much more; drunkenly, Rey leads him to her room. How she has the wherewithal to fish out her key and open the door is beyond her. Kylo takes over from there, swinging her up in his arms. She hears the door slam shut just as he throws her on the bed, and then he’s climbing on top of her, those big hands tearing at her clothes and cupping her body. Rey tries to reciprocate, to touch him with the same hunger that he touches her, but he’s moving with determination and she’s hopelessly drunk on the scent of him. None of her previous encounters with alphas had ever been this intoxicating. She’d been horny, certainly, but it had been different because they were friends. They hadn’t been attracted to each other so much as willing to scratch each other’s itch.

With Kylo, it’s pure, unadulterated attraction. She’s here because he wants her and she wants him.

He’s got her down to her underwear when he pauses. “Is there anything I should know first?” he asks, breathing hard. 

Her brain moves sluggishly, so it takes her a moment to grasp the question. She shakes her head. “I’m clean and I’m on birth control.” 

“Thank god.” He strips off what’s left of their clothes and then touches her center. It’s a very nice gesture, she’s sure, to see if she’s ready, but she’s in heat and foreplay is not only unnecessary, it’s borderline irritating. She whines impatiently, reaching for him. 

“You want this, don’t you, kitten?” he asks in a low growl. 

She nods eagerly. “Yes...Alpha.” 

Kylo settles his hips between her legs and slowly pushes inside her. And Rey...Rey loses her goddamn mind. 

She’s been with alphas before. She’s gotten properly fucked before. But  _ this _ …

This is exquisite. 

Kylo  _ fills _ her. His cock is enormous, almost too big even while she’s in heat, and she comes as soon as he’s fully inside her. 

When she comes back to earth, Kylo is gently thrusting into her. She wraps her legs around his hips, fingers sliding up to run through his hair. “Harder,” she whispers.

She can smell the pleasure rolling off of him. “You want it harder?”

“Yes,” she says eagerly. 

Kylo drives into her so hard that she cries out, fingers tugging at his hair. It feels  _ divine _ .

.

Later, when his knot is pulsing inside her and he’s gathered her against his chest (and  _ what _ a chest—he’s covered in scars and muscles and it’s all terribly sexy), she turns her face up to his. “I’ve never done this before,” she admits. 

He tenses. “This…?”

“I’ve done  _ this _ ,” she clarifies quickly. “I just mean I’ve never gone to a heat house before.”

He relaxes, resuming the rhythmic stroking of her hair. “I’ve never gone to one either,” he admits. 

“How is it so far?” she teases. 

“Mm...it’s  okay,” he says, clearly trying to sound indifferent—but his lips twitch as he tries to hold back a smile. 

“Just okay?” she says, playing along. “Hmm, well that’s no good. Maybe we should find a different omega for you.”

“Different omega, huh?”

“Yes,” she agrees. “And I can go back to that redheaded alpha—”

With a growl, Kylo rolls her onto her back, pinning her hands on either side of her head. “You aren’t going to so much as _look_ at another alpha while you’re here,” he snarls. “You are _mine_ , Omega.”

At any other time, Rey would have strongly objected to such language. She is a free and independent omega and she doesn’t belong to any alpha. 

...but she’s in heat and his knot is inside her and everything he’s saying is so terribly  _ sexy _ . So she only nods and murmurs, “Yes, Alpha.” 

He makes a noise almost like a purr before he lowers his head to her neck, dragging his teeth along her scent gland. “Good.”

It rolls up her spine again, a wave of hot desire. She makes a small noise, shifting her hips as much as she’s able with him still inside her. 

Kylo grins down at her. “I can smell you, kitten.” He bites her scent gland, earning another small, needy noise. “I can smell how badly you want it.”

“Please,” she whines, too far gone to care about looking desperate. “Please, Alpha, I  _ need _ to come.”

“I know.” He reaches down to caress her clit, rubbing tantalizing circles around the little bud until she cries out, her cunt clamping down on his knot as she comes again. Dimly, she feels him slipping out of her, and before she can whine in protest, he flips her onto her stomach. “Rey,” he breathes. “I’m going to fuck you until you forget your own name.”

Kylo, she learns, is an alpha of his word. 

.

They spend hours like that, fucking and talking and fucking some more. Rey had been afraid that things would be awkward when they weren’t fucking—that they wouldn’t have anything to talk about or he’d be an asshole. But it isn’t like that. Kylo’s...nice. Funny, even. A bit awkward, but so is Rey, and she finds it endearing. 

He tells her a little bit about himself. How he never fit in with the other kids growing up, how his parents never understood him and never tried to. 

“I did some stupid things in my twenties—bad things. I just wanted them to give a shit about me.” His smile is rueful. “It worked.”

_ I give a shit about you _ _ , _ Rey thinks.

.

“Are you hungry?” Kylo murmurs on the second day, pressing soft, unhurried kisses to her hair and cheek. 

She stirs in his arms. “Hmm?”

His kisses shift down to her neck and shoulder. “Do you want anything to eat?”

“Hmm-mm,” she murmurs, shaking her head. She’s so comfy like this, wrapped in her alpha’s arms and half-asleep. 

At least, until Kylo starts to pull away from her and that warm, comfortable feeling melts into panic. 

“Where are you going?” she asks shrilly.

Kylo gives her a bemused look. He hasn’t even left the bed yet. “I was just going to order food, kitten.”

His words soothe her, not least of all because he called her that delicious name, but it still means he’s going to leave her. 

He must see the upset on her face because he strokes her knee. “We need to eat. At least a little something.”

“I’m not hungry—“ she tries to protest, but he grasps her knee a little harder. 

“Omega,” he says in a deep, alpha voice, and she shuts her mouth. “You need to eat something.  _ I _ need to eat something so I can keep up my strength and give you what you need.”

She nods with wide eyes. Of course. Of course he needs to eat. She needs to eat. He’s taking care of her. 

“Stay here,” he commands, and she does, watching as he pulls the menu from the table in the corner. He scans the laminated page and then picks up the phone to order the “standard” snack tray. Rey doesn’t know what that means, but she does know she’s going to eat whatever Kylo gives her. She would do anything he asked her to. 

That’s one of the reasons she’d been so hesitant to come to a heat house, too. Rey’s friends have lovingly described her as strong and feisty. She famously met her friend Finn by punching him because she thought he’d stolen her friend’s jacket—a misunderstanding that had turned into one of her happiest and longest-lasting friendships.

Rey isn’t that feisty when she’s in heat. Her omega side completely takes over, reducing her to a whining, helpless creature that needs an alpha to tell her what to do. When she’s in heat, she would do any and everything for an alpha, no matter who they are, no matter how well she knows them. Omegas are always like that, and most alphas have the good manners not to take advantage...but that doesn’t mean  _ none _ of them do. Rey hears horror stories about alphas posting pictures and videos online, and she knows that more than a few porn sites feature amateur videos of omegas in heat. She hears, too, about omegas who get hurt by alphas they thought they could trust, friends who weren’t content being in the friendzone and decided to mate the omega they were helping through their heats. It’s scary, being an omega. 

Kylo sits on the bed, jolting Rey out of her thoughts. “Hey. Everything okay?”

“Yes,” she says with a smile. “Just...thinking.”

“About what?” 

“I’m glad…” She bites her lip, trying to think of the right thing to say. “I’m glad it was you.” She doesn’t know if that makes sense, but Kylo smiles. 

“I’m glad it was you too.” He ducks his head, licking her scent gland. “I’d been in that room for almost an hour and none of the omegas smelled right. I almost gave up when you came in.” His voice is a low murmur, one that sends a thrill up her spine. “I knew the minute I smelled you. I knew you were the one.” 

She moans, shifting closer to him. His hand drifts down between her legs, caressing the slickness there. She moans louder, rubbing herself against his hand. “Alpha…”

Kylo lowers himself to his stomach, pulling her knees over his shoulders. She lies back eagerly, breathing hard as he begins licking her center. 

“You still have my cum inside you,” he tells her, pleased. He licks inside her again, working his tongue until her hands fist in the sheets. His mouth is hungry on her, almost as if this is as much for his pleasure as it is for hers. Maybe it is.

At any other time, she’d be more than happy to get off on his tongue, but her body only wants to get off on one thing and one thing only, and after a while she begins to shift restlessly. “Kylo...I really need...ah...I need…”

“I know what you need.” He crawls up her body, lowering his head to kiss her. She can taste her slick all over his face, the mingled scents of their come making her that much slicker. Kylo strokes his cock before slowly pushing it inside her. 

Rey groans low and loud, thighs clamping around his hips as he fills her. Kylo thrusts leisurely, as if he has all the time in the world. It drives Rey mad; she drags her nails up his back, trying to urge him on, when a knock comes on the door. 

To her distress, Kylo pulls out of her. 

“But—“

“Cover yourself,” he orders. “I don’t want anyone but me to see you.”

She obediently pulls the sheets up over her chest, watching as he pads to the door, erect member still slick with her. It must be an alpha thing, she decides, not caring if you answer the door fully hard and clearly in the middle of having sex. He disappears around the corner and unlocks the door. 

Rey has no idea how the person at the door reacts to Kylo’s current state; there is a bare exchange of words, and then Kylo comes back bearing a platter of food. He sets it down on the table beside the bed and then climbs back in, tugging the sheets off of Rey and arranging her so that he can enter her swiftly. She thrills at the pace he sets, limbs winding around him, holding him close as he fucks her to the orgasm she so desperately she needs. 

When she comes, she’s hit by a feeling of  _ right _ ness. It’s the same feeling she gets whenever she comes in heat, that feeling that this is what she was made to do. Which she knows isn’t true, because it’s the twenty-first century and she was made for so much more than just taking an alpha’s knot, but while she’s in heat her omega side is in charge and right now her omega side is pleased. She clings to Kylo’s shoulders as he thrusts, his knot finally swelling up and locking them in place. 

They lie still for a moment, and then Kylo rolls them over so that Rey is lying atop him. He sits up, forcing Rey to straddle his lap as he leans against the headboard. Then, he reaches for some fruit on the platter beside the bed and plops it into Rey’s mouth. 

It’s...oddly hot, being hand fed like this. Kylo alternates between feeding her and feeding himself, making sure she gets a healthy variety. It’s all finger food, fruits and veggies and a little meat and cheese, and Rey eats all of it eagerly. 

_ Your alpha is taking care of you _ , her omega brain sings.  _ He’s taking care of you better than anyone ever has _ .

Which...may or may not be true. It’s hard to think straight while Kylo’s knot is inside her.

When she’s full (it doesn’t take much in heat—her body is in survival mode and can go without food the whole time if it has to), he gathers her against his chest, holding her affectionately. She purrs against his neck, rubbing his face against his scent gland. 

“You’re so different,” he murmurs. 

“From who?” Another omega? The last person he fucked? 

“From anyone I’ve ever met.”

She wants to tell him that he is too, but he kisses her with such vigor that she moans, rocking her hips desperately.

Then there isn’t any time for talking.

.

On the afternoon of the third day, her scent shifts. Not a lot, but even the smallest change is noticeable in her current state. She knows that she has about twelve hours, give or take, before her heat is over. It fills her with an odd sort of desperation, knowing that in a few hours they’ll have to separate for...ever. 

She knows it’s probably just the omega in her, desperate for a mate, but the thought of not seeing Kylo ever again upsets her. They could always try to meet  _ An Affair to Remember _ style, but she knows neither of them is exactly in the right frame of mind to talk about any kind of future together. She might not even want to see him again when her heat is over, and he...well, he’s an alpha. Alphas don’t like being pinned down to one omega. That’s the stereotype, anyway. Who’s to say Kylo doesn’t fit into it? 

To distract herself from saying anything she’ll regret later, she throws herself into making the most of her last hours of heat. Kylo is only too happy to indulge her, pinning her to the bed and fucking her so hard she thinks they might break the bed. She finally drifts to sleep, utterly exhausted.

.

When she wakes hours later, it’s to the sound of running water. Her lower body is sore, and that’s when it registers with her that her heat is over. She’s tired and aching, and she knows she’ll need at least a few more hours of sleep before she’ll feel like her old self again. 

_ Kylo _ _. _

He’s in the shower, probably washing off their...well. Washing off  _ them _ . The thought fills her with melancholy, which is perhaps because she’s still coming out of heat. Or maybe...maybe she really does like him. 

_ This is so stupid _ , she chides. He’s just an alpha who fucked her through her heat—it doesn’t mean anything. She’s overthinking, as usual. 

The shower shuts off and Rey panics. Should she say something? What if she does and he just laughs at her or shrugs her off? What if she doesn’t like him and just  _ thinks _ she likes him because her stupid omega biology wants a mate even though she’s in her early twenties and doesn’t even have health insurance, she isn’t ready for a  _ mate _ —

The bathroom door opens and Rey makes the impulse decision to pretend to be asleep. She stays curled up under the sheet, eyes closed as Kylo pads around the room. She hears him get dressed, pulling on clothes that have lain rumpled on the floor for three days now, and then he walks over to the side of the bed and stands still for a long moment. She doesn’t dare peek, but it almost feels as if he’s staring down at her. Does he know she’s awake?

And then he does something that surprises her: he leans over her and presses a soft kiss to  her temple.

“Goodbye, Rey,” he whispers, and then he leaves the room, shutting the door gently on his way out.

Her eyes fly open as soon as he’s gone. 

_ He likes me too _ . 

She sits up, and for a moment, she contemplates running after him. It would be just like in a movie, her running after him in nothing but a bedsheet, reaching him just as the elevator door starts to close—he’d jam it open and kiss her and then carry her back here to—

This is stupid.  _ Stupid _ . She came to a heat house to fuck a stranger and be done with it.  _ So be done with it _ , she tells herself. Let him go. 

She lies back in the bed and tries not to think anymore about Kylo.

.

“Earth to Rey.”

Rey blinks, then flushes as she realizes she’s been spacing out. Rose is giving her a bemused look.

“Sorry, what?”

“I was asking if you wanted to learn how to use the stamp machine.” 

Rey nods, hopping to her feet. “Sure!”

She’s been doing a lot of that lately. Saying “Sure!” in increasingly enthusiastic tones. She probably doesn’t have to, but she really, really wants to make a good impression at this job.

Finn found it for her. Or more correctly, Finn’s boyfriend and girlfriend, Poe and Rose, found it for her. Rey thinks they might feel kind of bad about taking Finn away from her—he’d been the best roommate she’d ever had until he and his partners decided to move in together. 

That’s part of why Rey had to give up her old job at Unkar Plutt’s antique store and find an office job. It was either find a new roommate—a terrifying prospect for someone with as many intimacy issues as Rey—or get her own place. She’d opted to find her own place, and with that, a new job. So, Poe and Rose had put in a good word with their boss and gotten her an administrative assistant position at their office. 

It’s...fine. It’s not what Rey wants to do with her life, but she doesn’t actually know what she wants to do with her life anyway, so it might as well be this. She has to admit that she likes the feeling of taking the El train with the other hundreds of thousands of commuters headed for the Loop every morning. She likes flashing her badge at security, even if she always does feel a bit like a pretender in her $12 Old Navy flats. And she likes the people she works with. Specifically, she likes the person she works  _ for _ . 

Leia Organa is everything Rey wants to be when she grows up. Poised and graceful, the woman is also a force to be reckoned with and Rey would hate to end up on her bad side. She’s an alpha, which amuses Rey because the woman is six inches shorter than her—not unheard of, certainly, but unusual. 

Why Leia hired Rey, whose administrative experience is extremely limited, is beyond her, because no matter how much Poe and Rose talked her up, the fact remains that Rey is incredibly unqualified for this position. Which is why she’s been so eager to do any and everything thrown her way. 

“Okay, the stamp machine is super simple, but for some reason, most of the men in this office have no idea how to use it,” Rose quips. 

“Talking about me, sweetheart?” Poe asks as he walks by, reaching out to tickle Rose. She giggles, biting her lip when he kisses one of the scent glands on her neck. He winks at Rey just before he saunters out of the room. They’re not exactly in an enclosed space, and even though Rey was the only person watching, it would have been easy for someone else to see. 

“Are people here...cool...with that?” she asks tentatively. 

“What, me and Poe?”

Rey shrugs. “You and Poe, you and Poe and Finn.”

“Oh, they know about Finn,” Rose laughs. “Yeah, people here are really cool about it. Actually, it was sort of Leia who suggested it.”

Rey’s eyebrows shoot up. “ _ Really _ ?”

Rose nods. “At first it was just Poe and I, which was…”

“Tempestuous?” Rey guesses.

“That’s a good word for it,” Rose agrees. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, it was great and we cared about each other a lot, but alphas don’t always do well with other alphas. Leia noticed, I guess it was hard to miss, and she suggested maybe bringing in a beta or an omega.”

“She  _ told _ you to have a threesome?”

“She didn’t  _ tell _ us, she…” Rose waves a hand vaguely. “She’s married to a beta, you know. And she said she used to have this uncontrollable temper and screamed at people a lot, but being around her husband sort of...helped her channel that energy, I guess. Being around someone who isn’t an alpha and needs more, like, calmness and tenderness. Anyway, Poe and I weren’t crazy about the idea of bringing in a third person, but then he met Finn and it just kind of...happened.”

Rey considers this. Most of what she knows about their relationship she knows from Finn, having listened to him as he fell in love with both Rose and Poe simultaneously and questioned whether such an arrangement was really viable. She’d never known that Poe and Rose had been counseled to take on a third person, a non-alpha person, in their relationship. “And do you think you’re...less tempestuous now?”

“Definitely,” Rose says without hesitation. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, Poe and I still have our moments, but with Finn...it feels like a real relationship. A healthy one, I mean. And like, I hate the stereotype that alphas need a beta or omega to ‘settle them down’ or whatever, but...I don’t know.” She shrugs. “Leia had a point.” 

Rey melts a little, the way she always does when she hears her friends talk about their unusual but wonderful relationship. She loves reading those stories online about unlikely couples—two omegas who found a way to help each other through their heats, trans alphas and omegas who learned to navigate their gender identity and designation, an alpha and omega pairing that don’t have sex because of past trauma. She loves those stories because they prove that love is so much more than biology—if two (or three) people love each other, they can and will find a way to make it work.

Rose seems to have a similar train of thought because a slow, mischievous smile spreads across her face. “And while we’re on the subject—“

“No.”

“Come on, Rey!” Rose wheedles. “You’ve got a fancy new job and a fancy new apartment—all you need now is a fancy new beau!”

“Did you just say  _ beau _ ?”

“It’s gender neutral.”

“It’s definitely not—“

“ _ Rey _ .” Rose rolls her eyes. “Why are you so afraid of dating?”

And god, how to unpack  _ that _ right here and now? 

She swallows. “I just don’t...like it.”

“You don’t like  _ dating _ ?” 

“It’s exhausting.” That part is true. “You have to get dressed up and leave your house and sit through an awkward dinner or whatever while you try to get to know each other, but you’re both on your best behavior and trying to impress each other, so you don’t get to know the real them at all. And then you might have to have sex and—”

“Wait,  _ might have to have _ ?” Rose is looking at her like she’s crazy. “Do you not enjoy sex?”

Rey’s cheeks flame.

“Oh my god,” Rose realizes. “You don’t.” Then she frowns. “Is that why you have so many heats alone…?”

_ God, why are they talking about this in the middle of the supply room _ ? “It’s different with heat. It isn’t so much...enjoying it as much as scratching an itch. Out of heat, though…” 

“You don’t like it?”

She shrugs. “Not really.”

Rose puts a hand to her heart. “Rey. This is. A travesty. We have to find you a good lay, like, yesterday.”

“Can we talk about this another time?”

Rose glances around, seeming to remember that they are at work. “Okay. Fine. But we’re talking about this. Another time”

Rey rolls her eyes good-naturedly. “If you say so.” She heads back to her desk, where she maintains her plucky nothing-bothers-me-not-even-the-crushing-weight-of-my-loneliness facade. It isn’t until she’s made it through the rest of the work day and the grueling transit home that she drops it, face falling as she trudges up the steps to her small, lonely apartment.

She will never admit to being lonely—not to anyone but herself, anyway. Finn had been worried she’d be lonely after the move, but she never would have forgiven herself if she was the reason he didn’t move into a new home with the partners he loves. And she is truly happy for him and Rose and Poe—they all love each other so much and they’re better people for it. Finn has grown up so much in the time they’ve started seeing each other, and after what Rose told her today, Rey knows that Rose and Poe have done their share of growing, too. It’s a good thing, really.

And realistically, it’s probably good for Rey, too. She needs to learn to be on her own, to let people come and go in her life and not push them away when she feels them getting closer or dig in with her heels when she feels them slipping away. She needs to  _ chill out _ . 

Her benefits haven’t started yet, but when they do, she vows to take advantage of having Blue Cross Blue Shield and find a therapist. Someone who will help her parse out all her issues and confront them head-on. And then, maybe,  _ maybe _ , she’ll resume that talk with Rose.

.

Leia comes in late the next morning. That in itself isn’t unusual, but instead of the calm serenity she usually exudes when coming in late (“Bet you anything she and her husband were screwing, the lucky bastard,” Poe said once), she smells agitated and angry. She greets them without smiling and then closes her office door—something she normally reserves for meetings and important phone calls.

“Oh, this is not good,” Poe says.

Rey glances at him. “Are we...in trouble?”

“No,” Rose says, “but things might be a little...tense...today.”

The atmosphere has definitely shifted. Everyone’s a little quieter, a little more serious, and Rey, who is constantly on the alert for atmospheric shifts (you had to, when you grew up in foster care—that was the only way she knew she was about to be moved to a different home), is an anxious mess because of it. She knows she isn’t going to get fired or sent home or anything like that, but the disappointment of an authority figure, directed at her or not, has never been easy for her to handle. She can’t tell how much of that is an omega thing and how much of that is an abandonment issues thing. Probably, she thinks dolefully, a little of both. 

She’s in the break room, reaching for a Snapple (there are always free drinks and snacks in the break room and Rey just can’t get over that) when Leia sweeps in, making a beeline for the coffee. Rey keeps her head down, and to her mingled horror and relief, Leia says, “Hi, Rey.”

“Hi,” Rey says in a cheerful squeak. 

“How’s it going?”

“Oh, great,” Rey says with far too much enthusiasm. “It’s, um, going really well.”

“You don’t have to be so jumpy around me,” Leia says wryly, leaning against the counter. “I may be your boss, but I promise I won’t bite—I’m mated.”

Rey’s cheeks turn bright red. “Uh…”

Leia laughs. “Sorry, it’s an old joke, and a bad one, but I’m attached to it.” She seems less on edge now, and that makes Rey relax. “Seriously, how’s it going?”

“It’s good,” Rey says honestly. “There’s a lot to learn but everyone’s been really helpful.”

“They’re good eggs,” Leia agrees. “I don’t hire bad ones.”

_ That must mean I’m a good egg, too _ . 

Leia sips her coffee, gazing out the window. “Do you have kids, Rey?”

It isn’t the first time someone has asked Rey, but it never fails to take her by surprise. “Um, no.”

Leia nods slowly. “They’re...a handful.” And with that, she returns to her office. 

Rey feels like she knew from Poe or Rose or someone that Leia has kids. A son, at least. But Rey thought he was older. She asks Poe, who’s been working here longest and is on the best terms with Leia. 

“She has one son,” he says automatically. “Ben. We grew up together.” 

“Really?” Rey asks in surprise. She knew Poe and Leia were close, but not  _ that _ close. 

“Well, we grew up  _ around _ each other,” he amends. “Our parents were friends.”

“Leia said he’s...a handful.” 

Poe rolls his eyes. “Understatement of the century. Ben is...he has a lot of issues. A lot of it was typical alpha stuff, you know, anger management and getting into fights, but then he went to college and...I don’t know. His entire ideology changed. He got really invested in the right wing, believed that alphas are superior to betas and omegas.”

Rey can’t understand how any son of Leia Organa’s would believe such a thing. “But Leia…”

“It was hard on her,” Poe says. “That wasn’t the son she raised, you know?”

“So he’s still…?”

“I don’t really know.” Poe shrugs. “They’re back on speaking terms, so my guess is he’s...calmed down. Maybe. I don’t think Leia would talk to him if he hadn’t changed.” 

With a son like that, it’s no wonder Leia is in such low spirits. Even if he’s changed as Poe says, knowing her son had failed her like that…Rey can’t imagine. An irrational swell of anger flares inside her. Leia’s son has a wonderful mother. He  _ has _ a mother, one who didn’t abandon him. How could anyone turn on their mother, turn on  _ Leia _ , the way her son has done? How could he cause her so much distress?

_ Calm down _ , she has to tell herself. She doesn’t know the situation. It’s none of her business. Just because she’d kill to have a mother like Leia…

Oddly, her thoughts drift to Kylo.

_ Kylo _ .

She hasn’t thought about him in a while. Which is saying something, because she couldn’t stop thinking about him in the days following the heat house. But instead of thinking about how good the sex had been, she thinks about something he said while they were knotted. 

_ “I did some stupid things in my twenties—bad things. I just wanted them to give a shit about me.” _

She wonders if that’s why Ben did the things he did—to make his parents give a shit about him. 

But how could any son of Leia’s feel as if she didn’t give a shit about him? Leia cares about so many people and so many things—of course she’d care about her son. 

“Rey?” Poe asks, jolting her out of her musings. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” she says. “Just absorbing.” She goes back to her desk, trying to focus on the marketing spreadsheets she’s been given and not,  _ not _ thinking about Kylo.

She’s mostly successful; she doesn’t really think about him again until she gets home, the sound of her feet echoing in her empty apartment. 

In some way, she thinks she misses Kylo. She knows she can’t really, of course, because she only knew him for a few days, and she was in a fevered haze most of that time, but…

But what else do you call it when you think about someone constantly and get an ache in your chest when you remember how you’d felt with them? 

She’s never been like this before, never fixated on an alpha who helped her through her heat. She tries to tell herself it’s because he’s the only stranger she’s ever been with on her heat, that she just doesn’t know how to process such intimacy from someone she knows from Adam, but some part of her suspects there’s more to it than that. It sounds cheesy, but she really feels like they’d had a  _ connection _ . Beyond the obvious biological, that is. Like they would have been good together in real life, outside her heat. 

She knows that this is probably the omega in her thinking. The omega who’s desperate for a mate, for human contact, for any kind of relationship as long as it means not being alone anymore. It’s the other part of her, the logical human being, who knows that even if she and Kylo had managed to work their way around the heat house’s regulations and stayed in touch, things might not have worked out. Just because they had some really, really good sex doesn’t mean they’re compatible as people. He could collect stamps or not believe in climate change. He could be an asshole. He could be  _ married _ . The likelihood that he’s sane, stable, and the perfect man for her is slim to none. 

Maybe Rose is right. Maybe she should try dating. She’s clearly starving for affection. Maybe dating someone would be good for all her intimacy and commitment issues, too. And maybe...maybe dating would finally put Kylo out of her mind. Maybe she needs a real life person and not some hazy memory onto which she can project. 

Which is how she finds herself picking up her phone and texting Rose. 

_ You know how you said we’d talk about my love life another time?  _

Rose responds almost at once.

**_Is now the time?_ **

_ I think so. _

.

Rose, Finn, and Poe have what feels like a neverending list of single friends. Rey can only manage one date every couple of weeks because it’s such a drain on her time and energy (something her three friends, who are around each other constantly, don’t understand), so it’s slow going, but that suits her just fine. 

The first person she goes on a date with is an alpha named Saile Minnau. He’s nice, but...bland. When he texts Rey a couple days after their date (a perfectly unmemorable dinner of wings and beer at his favorite sports bar), she opens the text and then quietly closes it without responding. 

Her second date is with another alpha, this one named Salaka Kuchimba. He’s also nice but bland. She makes out with him on his couch after, and though he’s slow and respectful, she still leaps from the couch as if scalded when things get a little hotter and heavier. 

“Sorry—” he starts to say, but she shakes her head.

“It’s fine!” she says in a squeaky voice. She lunges for her purse and jacket. “I’ll, um, see you later.”

He texts her several times after that, all trying to make sure she’s okay, but Rey just...can’t. 

“What was wrong with him?” Rose wants to know.

“Nothing.”

“Nothing? Then why did you run away?”

Why  _ did _ she run away? He’d been nice, and it wasn’t like he’d tried to force her or anything. She’d even been entertaining the notion of having sex with him, just to see if it was as bad as she remembered. What had made her run like that?

“Okay, maybe it was just his...scent or something,” Rose says. “Maybe we should back off from men altogether, actually.” 

By the time Rey’s first ninety days have passed and her benefits kick in, Rose has set her up with a beta woman named Koo Millham. It goes...well. Great, actually. Koo is pretty and funny and nice, and she and Rey go to a music festival in Millennium Park. They hold hands and get buzzed, and at the end of the day, Koo kisses her cheek and tells Rey to text her.

Rey, predictably, does not.

“Why do you think that is?” her therapist asks. Because Rey goes to therapy now. Because she’s an adult with a fulltime job with benefits and she can afford it. The concept is still rather new to her. 

“I don’t know.”

“You liked Koo. Why not text her back?” 

“Because,” Rey says.

“Because why, Rey? Help me understand,” Maz urges. Maz Kanata is an old and somewhat eccentric woman who looks as if she hasn’t updated her wardrobe since 1980 and is both one of the warmest and most terrifying alphas Rey has ever met. 

Rey sighs. “Because if I text her back...if we kept talking...eventually she’d leave.”

“Really?” Maz asks, peering at her over the rim of her spectacles. 

“Or,” Rey says, face heating, “I’d be the one to leave. Because I...I wouldn’t be happy enough or good enough or something.”

“Sometimes leaving is good,” Maz says. “It doesn’t always have to be a bad thing.”

Rey doesn’t really know what to say to that, because simple as it sounds, it’s never really occurred to her before. “Oh.”

Maz leans back in her chair. “Do you think this is why you fixate so much on a hook-up and shy away from potential relationships? Because the hook-up didn’t get a chance to leave you, and with these potential partners, you squashed any chance of their leaving you?”

“But he did leave,” Rey whispers. “Kylo left.”

“That was different, though, wasn’t it?”

Slowly, reluctantly, Rey nods.

Maz mirrors the movement. “You think about him so often because he didn’t get the chance  to really leave you the way you fear. But you don’t text the others back because they have every opportunity to leave you. There’s no limit to their interactions with you, and in your mind, eventually one of you will leave the other.”

Rey just nods helplessly.

“It doesn’t have to be that way,” Maz says again, gentler. “Sometimes people don’t fit well together. Sometimes we need to let someone go for our own happiness and for theirs. It doesn’t mean you failed.”

Rey takes a deep breath and tries not to cry. “Right.”

She thinks about Maz’s words a lot as Rose and Finn and Poe set her up with a fourth person—another omega named Geno Namit. 

And, look, Rey really does try. Geno is very awkward but very nice, funny without trying to be and adorably genuine. A couple days after their first date, Rey takes a deep breath and makes herself text him. 

It’s nice. Geno’s nice. And even though he’s an omega, Rey finds herself determined to make it work. 

And then Geno goes into heat, and Rey, understanding and respecting the situation, politely waits for him to get back in touch with her when it’s over.

But she waits, and waits, and finally at lunch one day, Rose and Poe pull her aside and grimly admit that Geno asked Salaka (yes,  _ that _ Salaka) to get him through his heat and now they are very much together. 

The irony is not lost on Rey.

“Okay, that was...an admittedly unfortunate incident and I would not blame you at all if you didn’t feel like dating ever again,” Rose says, wincing. “But I really feel like you’ve been making progress!”

Rey feels like she has, too. The fact that she went on a total of four dates with Geno (plus randomly bumping into him at the pizza place around the corner which probably technically doesn’t count, but it was something) and wasn’t the one ghosting the other speaks volumes about her progress. 

Which is how she finds herself agreeing to a fifth setup—this time, with Rose’s sister, Paige. Because Paige is Rose’s sister and not just a friend, and also because of Rey’s bad luck with dating, Rose wants to make sure Rey and Paige get to meet each other before agreeing to go on a date. Rey likes this arrangement, and even takes the initiative by suggesting that Rose bring Paige to Leia’s Fourth of July cookout. Most of the office is going, including Rose and Poe, and as friends, family, and significant others are encouraged to attend, Rey figures it will be the perfect, laid back opportunity to meet Paige and decide what kind of relationship she’d like to pursue. And Finn will be there, so if things go south, at least Rey will have her best friend there to help.

On the afternoon of the Fourth, Rey dresses in a red and white checkered button-up with denim shorts and then grabs a Lyft over to Highland Park. Leia has insisted that they not bring anything other than themselves—she is providing all food and drinks.

“She goes all out,” Poe had explained when Rey had voiced concerns over bringing something. “Seriously, you don’t need to bring anything. In fact, she might view it as an offense.”

Poe’s not wrong—Leia’s entire kitchen is covered in platters of food, and on the back patio, her husband, Han, is grilling burgers and hotdogs. Leia is in her element, sweeping around the party and aggressively making sure all her guests are having a good time. 

Rey finds Finn, Poe, Rose, Kaydel, and what must be Paige gathered in the living room, talking over the top hits of the ‘80s and ‘90s playing on the stereo. Paige and Kaydel are talking animatedly, but Paige smiles at Rey and shakes her hand when Rose prods her. Paige is every bit the lesbian alpha Rose described—she’s wearing plaid, for one thing, and denim cutoffs, and through her black tank top, Rey is fairly certain she can detect the outline of nipple rings. For the first time in a long time, Rey feels a slight stirring between her legs. This is good. Maybe things will work out with Paige.

They chat for a while—Paige works for a shipping company, where she drives and repairs eighteen wheelers. She and Rey bond over their mutual love of fixing things, and over Paige’s shoulder, Rey can see her friends giving her enthusiastic thumbs-up. It’s all going well.

And then she smells it. 

A scent she hasn’t smelled in a few months but would know anywhere. 

Kylo. 

Rey’s head snaps around to where Kylo is, indeed, lumbering into the house. If he notices her, he makes no sign, heading straight for the back door with a scowl on his face.

“Excuse me,” Rey says, cutting off Paige. She reaches for Finn and physically drags him to a corner. 

“What? What is it?”

“That’s him,” she whispers frantically. “Kylo. The alpha who I met at the heat house.”

Finn, who knows how big a deal that was for her, gives her a wolfish grin. “Oh  _ really _ ?”

“What is he  _ doing _ here?” she hisses. 

“I don’t know, but we’re gonna find out,” Finn says, taking Rey’s hand and pulling her out the door. 

“ _ No _ ,” she tries to protest, but not very hard, because she  _ is _ curious. 

Finn carts Rey out to the back patio, where Kylo is having what looks like a heated conversation with Han and Leia. They look up as Rey and Finn come out, though, and before Rey can scamper inside, Leia sweeps over to her. “Rey! Finn! I don’t think you’ve met my son, Ben.”

_ What?! _ Rey’s head screams.

Ben, or Kylo, or whatever his name is, regards Rey with something akin to horror. Well, great. Just. Fucking. Great.

“Ben, come say hello,” Leia says sternly. “This is Rey, she’s my new administrative assistant, and Finn—he’s dating Poe, you remember him, and my office assistant, Rose.”

Ben shakes their hands wordlessly. When his hand touches Rey’s, she feels almost like she’s touching a live wire.

So this is Ben. Leia’s son. The one who joined the right wing and believed—or maybe still believes—that alphas are superior to betas and omegas. 

And he’s also the alpha who helped Rey through her heat and about whom she’s fantasized almost nonstop. 

“So,  _ Ben _ ,” Finn says a little too excitedly. “Tell us about yourself.”

“What do you want to know?” Ben asks in that low, measured voice she remembers. It makes her shiver.

“What do you do? Do you live around here?” Finn asks. One thing Rey has always admired about Finn is that he doesn’t care if he sounds obnoxious so long as he gets his way. Right now, she really wishes he’d tamp down on that particular characteristic. 

Ben looks as if he wishes the same thing. “I’m an attorney, and I relocated to Chicago a few months ago.” He looks at Rey as he says this last part. 

“Single?” Finn presses.

Rey wants to die. Ben is not looking much better.

“Finn, you’re worse than me,” Leia laughs.

“I’m just saying, Rey’s  _ also _ single—” Finn starts to say, but Rey grabs a handful of his shirt and mutters something about drinking too much before towing him back inside. She doesn’t stop until they’re in the bathroom, and even though this is a work party at her boss’s house, something about the whole thing feels like the trashy house parties she and Finn used to frequent. 

“What’s wrong with you, Peanut?”

“What’s wrong with me is that Ben is an  _ asshole _ ,” Rey hisses.

Finn frowns. “I thought he helped you through your heat.”

“He did, but I didn’t know then!” She takes a deep breath. “Poe told me a while ago that Leia’s son got really into the right wing and believed that alphas were superior to omegas and betas.”

“He  _ what _ ?”

“I know. And I don’t know if he still feels that way but...god, Finn, I fucked that guy. A lot. Like, a  _ lot _ . ”

“I’m sorry, Rey,” Finn says sincerely. “I didn’t realize or I wouldn’t have tried to push him on you like that.”

She groans, plopping onto the toilet. 

“Maybe he doesn’t feel that way anymore,” Finn suggests weakly. 

“Yeah, maybe,” Rey says, but neither of them really believes it.

“Do you want to go home?” 

Rey considers. Going home means spending a holiday alone, which is a horrible thought. If she stays at Leia’s, though, she’ll have her friends, and good food, and enough alcohol to drown her problems. Paige is here, too. And if she’s being totally honest with herself, part of her wants to talk to Ben some more, just to see what he’s really like. 

“No,” she decides. “I’ll stay. But I need a fruity drink that’s ninety percent drink and ten percent fruity.”

“You got it, babe.”

She doesn’t get the drink, though, because as soon as she walks out of the bathroom, she bumps right into what feels like a wall. Strong arms come up to steady her, and it only takes her one inhale to recognize Ben. 

“Sorry,” she squeaks.

“Are you okay?” When she nods, he relaxes his arms. “Can we talk?”

She blinks. Well, that was fast. “Sure.”

She follows Ben out of the hall, through the foyer, and up the stairs. She grips the railing, staring at the pictures of what must be a young Ben lining the wall.

“Did you ever grow into your ears?” she asks.

Ben freezes. “Please don’t talk about my ears.”

She moves up to the step above his, reaching to push back his hair. He grabs her wrist before she can, making her wobble, but he catches her before she can fall and holds her tight against him. Then he does something very surprising: he leans forward and kisses her. 

Rey kisses back. She can’t help it—he feels so good against her lips. His hands move to her waist, splaying out over the thin cotton of her shirt. She makes an indecent noise, and that seems to bring her back to reality. 

She pulls away, poking his chest. “Poe told me you think alphas are superior to betas and omegas. Is that true?”

Ben’s eyes darken, and for a moment, she thinks he’s going to shout or swear. But then a weary look crosses his face and, with a sigh, he sits down on the step. “It used to be.”

Rey sits beside him. “Used to?”

He nods. “Yeah. I...got in with the wrong people.” He hesitates. “Do you remember what I said about...doing stupid shit to make my parents pay attention to me?”

She nods. 

“Yeah. That was the stupid shit. My mom...she was always so focused on her causes, her charities, on these random underprivileged children she’d never met, but she barely knew me, her own son. And my dad...he never understood being an alpha. My mom is so composed, you know, and I wasn’t growing up, and he wanted me to suppress it. Joining the right wing made them finally look at me. Like, take a really good look. I’m not defending it,” he adds quickly, seeing the look on her face. “I’m just...explaining why I did it.” He takes a deep breath, running a hand through his hair. “My parents stopped talking to me and...I convinced myself it was what I wanted. But it wasn’t.” He’s quiet for a moment. “I knew the shit I’d gotten into was...fucked. I knew that from the beginning. I’d thought being around those people and their ideology would make it easier for me to swallow it, but it just made it harder. And finally I realized I wasn’t sticking it to my parents, I was just making myself miserable. I called my mom and we had this long conversation and she told me to come home.” He shrugs. “So I did.”

Rey is quiet for a long moment, absorbing this. “So you’re...you’re not...you don’t believe…?”

“No,” he says definitively. “I don’t.”

She releases a breath. “That’s...good.” 

“Dameron doesn’t know the intimate details of my life,” he says wryly.

“I’m still glad he told me.”

Ben is quiet for a moment. “Yeah, I guess you...deserve to know.”

Rey leans against the wrought iron spokes of the stair rail. This has been...a lot. “So when we met…”

“I’d just come back. I was still kind of...figuring my shit out. I was between jobs and dealing with leaving that life behind me. I went to the heat house to blow off steam and...there you were.”

“There I was,” she agrees. “Why did you tell me your name was Kylo?”

He huffs out a small laugh. “Kylo was the name I went by...before. It’s a stupid alpha name, I know.”

“It’s not stupid,” she says. She’s moaned and whispered and screamed that name—it can’t be stupid to her. “But I think Ben suits you better.”

“Thanks,” he mumbles.

“So what do you do now, Ben?”

He straightens up. “I’m an attorney for a firm that advocates the rights of omegas.”

She raises an eyebrow. “Seriously?”

“Seriously.” He turns to look at her. “Rey, I...I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you. Since the heat house. I thought about waking you up when I left and...giving you my number or something. But I knew it wasn’t allowed and I was still unpacking so much of what I’d accepted and I didn’t know if you’d even want to talk outside of your heat, so I left. But you sort of...stuck with me. I’d been futzing around without any kind of purpose, and then I met you and...I knew what I wanted to do with my life. I used to be a criminal defense attorney and I’d defend the shittiest people—and I won most of those cases. Defending the rights of omegas feels like I’m doing something meaningful with my life. Like I’m putting that shitty experience to good use.” He takes a deep breath. “And...I’m sorry this is creepy, but it feels...I mean the fact that you’re  _ here _ , in my parents’ house...it...it feels like we were supposed to meet again.”

“It does feel that way,” she agrees softly.

Ben reaches for her hand. “Rey—”

It is at that precise moment that Leia’s voice booms through the house. “Fireworks are starting soon! Everyone get ready!”

Oh. Right. She’s at Leia’s house. For a Fourth of July party. 

“I guess we’d better—” she starts to say, getting up, but Ben doesn’t let go of her hand.

“You can see the fireworks from my old room,” he blurts, his ears turning red. He never did grow into them.

Rey regards him for a moment. She’s fantasized about him for  _ months _ , and now he’s just...here. He practically fell into her lap. She doesn’t necessarily believe in soulmates, but this feels like something more than serendipity. So she squeezes his hand and murmurs, “I’d like that.”

His eyes widen. “Really?”

She nods. “Yeah. But…” Her face flames. “...I should tell you...I’ve never really, um...enjoyed sex outside of heat.”

His eyes darken. “You’ve  _ never _ ?”

She shakes her head. 

Ben stands up (god, he’s so  _ tall _ ) and looks furiously down at her. “We’re going to change that. Right now.” And he leads her the rest of the way upstairs.

Fireworks are already crackling outside, but Rey only has eyes and ears for Ben. She kisses him as soon as he closes the bedroom door, fingers hooking in the loops of his jeans as his hands splay over her waist again. He backs them into the bed, pulling her to straddle his lap. It feels so odd, to kiss him with clothes on, but she likes the way his stiffening cock feels through his jeans, the friction that’s caused when she grinds herself against him. He growls, a deliciously alpha sound, and nips at her scent gland. She’s going to smell like him at work tomorrow, she’s going to smell like him in front of his  _ mother _ , her  _ boss _ , but she can’t quite bring herself to care at the moment. He reaches down to unbutton her shorts, and then his hand is pushing inside them and he’s touching her damp center and Rey lets out a comically eager moan.

“I’ve thought about this cunt so many times,” he murmurs, stroking her clit. “I’ve thought about the way you sound when I touch it...when I’m inside it…”

She whimpers, grinding down against his fingers.

“Just like that,” he says, and she can feel him grinning against her neck. 

“Please,” she urges. 

He crooks one finger up inside her, drawing out a moan. He pumps his finger inside her, rubbing that rough patch inside her. She grinds down on his hand, dragging her folds against the palm of his hand. The hand at her waist is holding her so tightly now, gripping fit to bruise as he fucks her with one finger, then two. He barely adds a third before she sinks her teeth into his shoulder, whimpering as an orgasm rolls over her. 

“There she is,” he murmurs. “There’s my kitten.”

And oh, the things that does to her.

Ben seems to have an idea, because he turns them around, setting her down against the pillows as he crawls down her body. Her shorts and underwear disappear, and then he’s looking up at her as he licks the wetness from her slit. 

Rey’s head falls back against the pillows. Before, there hadn’t been any need for foreplay. She’d been ready and willing and desperate for his knot. So this...his mouth on her, his tongue slipping inside her...it’s divine. She makes an inhuman noise, fingers tangling in that magnificent hair of his as he brings her to orgasm a second time. 

“You taste so good, kitten,” he tells her. “Just like I imagined.”

She pulls him up and on top of her, tugging at his clothes until they’re gone. “Alpha,” she whispers.

Ben growls again, one hand reaching down to stroke his cock. “I’m gonna make you—“ He freezes.

“What?” she asks nervously.

“I don’t have a condom.”

“You didn’t last time, either,” she points out. “Are you clean?”

“Yes.”

“Me too.” She wraps her legs around his waist. “But you already knew that—I haven’t been with anyone else since you.”

Ben groans. “God, you’re perfect.”

She tightens her legs. “Fuck me, alpha.”

And he does. 

Ben’s cock pushes inside her slowly, stretching her more than she’s ever been stretched. She’s glad he got her off twice before, because he is  _ impossibly _ big, and she doesn’t think she’d be able to handle him otherwise. Her nails rake up his back as he sinks inside her, drawing a hiss from between his lips. He bites her scent gland again, pushing more of his weight onto his arms as he begins to thrust.

“You feel perfect,” he growls. “You feel like you were made for me.”

Outside, a firework screams into the night sky, but Rey can think of nothing but Ben inside her, Ben fucking her, Ben Ben Ben Ben  _ Ben _ _. _

They watch the fireworks after with his knot pulsing inside her, her back pressed to his chest and his arms holding her close. 

“Rey?” he asks softly.

“Hmm?”

He hesitates. “Would you...want to go on a date sometime?”

And Rey can’t help it—she laughs. “I think sex usually comes after a date, not before.”

“Oh, we can have sex after, too,” he hastens to assure her. “We can have  _ so _ much sex.”

Rey nestles deeper into his arms. “That sounds nice.”

A burst of red fills the room, and Rey realizes it’s the first time she’s ever enjoyed sex outside of her heat. 

She’s going to have to keep him. 

  
  



End file.
